Orthodox Leader in Israel Appears to Spurn Peres

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A 92-year-old rabbi may have dealt a death blow to Shimon Peres's chances of forming a new government this evening when he told more than 10,000 followers that they could not support the Labor Party because it was not supportive enough of strict Judaism.

The cleric, Rabbi Eliezer Menachem Schach, is the revered spiritual mentor of more than 100,000 rigorously Orthodox Jews. His pronouncement, before a meeting of the tiny Torah Flag party, which he founded, not only hurt Labor's hopes but may also have ended any chance of movement on peace talks with Palestinians in the occupied lands.

Speaking to an auditorium packed with followers this evening, the rabbi said: ''Labor cut off its links with the Torah and the past. They have no connections with their fathers.''

Rabbi Schach's voice was weak, but much of the nation heard his message, broadcast live on the Israel Army radio. ''We don't have to follow parties that have no connection with our traditions,'' the rabbi said, alluding to Labor's support for laws promoting secular rights. Those rights include conducting business as usual on the Sabbath and permitting marriages and other rites to go forward without the presence of a rabbi.

When the rabbi finished, the consensus in the crowd was that the religious bloc in Parliament could not conceivably support Labor. Without the religious parties' support, Mr. Peres, who is Prime Minister-designate, is unlikely to assume that title in full.

Such a result appears to insure that the American proposal for peace talks with the Palestinians will not be carried out. Labor supports the idea while the Likud party strongly opposes it, even though it is based on Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's own initiative.

''I do not regret today having stopped the process before it deteriorated, because I did not agree with the idea being proposed,'' Mr. Shamir, speaking to a closed committee of Parliament today, was reported to have said of the proposal for talks.

Most of the nation had been waiting anxiously and not necessarily happily for Rabbi Schach to deliver his political verdict. This morning the daily newspaper Hadashot heralded the rabbi's speech with a banner headline saying, ''It's All in the Hands of Heaven.''

With Labor and Likud locked in a 60-60 tie as Labor tries to win a parliamentary majority and form a government, Mr. Peres was looking to two religious parties - Torah Flag, with 2 seats in the 120-seat Parliament, and Shas, with 6 - to tip the balance.

Shas, in fact, broke the tie in Mr. Peres's favor the night that Parliament voted to dissolve the Government two weeks ago. But the religious parties in Israel can be fickle. Shas and Torah Flag have rigid hierarchies. And their undisputed chief is Rabbi Schach, the spiritual leader of the combined Sephardic-Lithuanian wing of Israel's rigorously Orthodox Jews.

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''God should add life to the days of the king,'' thousands of men chanted, clapping and singing, as Rabbi Schach entered the packed sports arena where the convention was held tonight.

Women who follow the rabbi's movement were not allowed in because Orthodox Judaism requires the separation of the sexes in public. Women trying to report on the proceedings were only allowed to watch the speech by closed-circuit television, prompting complaints from journalists and others.

Issue of Army Service

For the last week, commentators have been scathing in their criticism of the nation's Orthodox Jews and of the political system that gave Rabbi Shach the power to decide the nation's fate.

''An old rabbi, most of whose pupils won't fight the next war, might decide today about the future of hundreds of thousands of people whose sons and grandchildren might be hurt in it,'' the author Yoram Kaniuk complained.

A common criticism among secular Israelis, the vast majority of the nation's people, is that most Orthodox citizens do not serve in the army, although military service is universal for others. Eli Landau, the Mayor of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, told a conference of mayors on Sunday: ''I have a respect for rabbis, but this is it. Israel is becoming a Khomeini-ist country.''

But Gerald Wittenstein, a Schach follower at the Torah Flag convention this evening, said he and most others were not unhappy that the nation's fate was placed in the hands of one man.

Shamir Appears to Gain

''If not him,'' Mr. Wittenstein said, ''then the decision would be left in less able hands. Whatever he says I am sure is based on careful thinking and consideration.''

The rabbi never mentioned Likud, and he never told his followers not to support Mr. Peres. But his words of criticism for Labor were even more direct and critical than his followers expected, several of them said, leaving them with little doubt about what to do.

Rabbi Avhraham Ravitz, a Torah Flag member of Parliament, said it was his view, given Rabbi Schach's opinion, that the Torah party should support Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and the Likud, and then urge him to form another national unity government with Labor. ''We think through Mr. Shamir we are going to reach a large government,'' he said.

A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 1990, on Page A00008 of the National edition with the headline: Orthodox Leader in Israel Appears to Spurn Peres. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe